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Friday, May 29, 2015

DOJ civil rights chief shaped by landmark TX litigation

In the course of twenty years in Texas' criminal-justice reform movement, Grits has enjoyed the good fortune to work with a bevy of amazing women and, for whatever reason, only a handful of men operating at the same, high levels who for the most part were unable to get out of their (our) own way.

Emblematic of the former, happier, group is Vanita Gupta who took over as acting head of the Civil Rights Division at the US Justice Department in October but, in a past life, was once co-counsel on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the legal tussle following the Tulia drug busts. She went on to run national ACLU's Campaign to End Mass Incarceration before President Obama selected her for the Civil Rights post.

The Tulia episode, which for all intents and purposes inaugurated Texas' 21st century criminal-justice reform movement as we know it today, transformed the political and legal landscape surrounding the drug war and innocence issues in this state. Bail mechanisms put in place to free the Tulia defendants while awaiting the processing of habeas writs were later routinely used to free DNA exonerees. Voting blocks first created to pass reform legislation in the wake of the growing national scandal became templates for future criminal justice legislation, including Texas' much-vaunted 2007 probation reforms. And the abolition of Texas' drug task force system significantly shifted the focus of local law enforcement in ways that we couldn't foresee at the time.

So Grits couldn't avoid a moment of nostalgia when this profile on Gupta - who in the wake of the post-Ferguson police accountability maelstrom became an instant national figure - prominently featured her years working on the Tulia case as a formative experience:

In 2001, a 26-year-old, fresh out of law school, had just started at
the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and was looking for a case. When she saw a short documentary about a troubling large-scale drug bust in a tiny Texas town, with facts she thought were "almost too outrageous to believe," as she later put it, Vanita Gupta decided to check things out for herself.

Tulia,
Texas, a town of about 5,000 people, was the scene of a large drug bust
in 1999 that rounded up more than 10 percent of the city's small black
population. A total of 46 people -- mostly black, but a few of them
white and in relationships with African-Americans -- were arrested on
charges of trafficking cocaine. Local news coverage celebrated
the arrests, with one newspaper proclaiming that Tulia's streets had
been "cleared of garbage." The defendants were convicted and given
extraordinarily lengthy sentences: 300 years. 90 years. 60 years.

The
evidence against many of them? Uncorroborated testimony of a single
man: a former rodeo cowboy who regularly used racial slurs, whom local
police had hired to go undercover and target "street-level" dealers.

After
a few days of meetings with family members and a local attorney, Gupta
returned to her New York office with so many documents she had to buy an
extra suitcase at Walmart. The case would soon grab still more attention. "60 Minutes" deemed the case one of the "worst miscarriages of justice in recent memory." The New York Times described it as a "national symbol of racial injustice."
The agent on whose testimony the case rested, who had been named Texas
Lawman of the Year in 1999 for his work in Tulia, was called "devious"
by a Texas judge, who said he had committed "blatant perjury." The agent
was later convicted
on aggravated perjury charges. Gov. Rick Perry (R) pardoned most of the
Tulia defendants, and Gupta helped the plaintiffs secure a $5 million settlement that required the federally funded drug task force responsible for the arrests to be disbanded.

But
Tulia wasn't an isolated incident, Gupta said, it was just the tip of
the iceberg. "There is a need for more systemic reform to prevent other
Tulias from taking place," she said in a 2004 interview with NYU Law, her alma mater.

Still, Vanita played a pivotal role. And though we haven't communicated in a couple of years, I'd like to think those formative experiences 15 years ago which shaped both of us so significantly still connect us in some small way. I'm really quite proud of her.

4 comments:

Her appointment may prove to be most interesting and could provide us with a ringside seat to a battle within the justice department between herself and Kenneth Magidson who has single-handedly thwarted all previous efforts to bring federal charges against any of the Houston cops who have killed almost 150 citizens within the past 8-years alone. http://www.texasobserver.org/houston-cops-always-justified-shootings/

Gupta will either be forced to look the other way or confront the evil bastard who is most responsible for allowing HPD officers to have Carte Blanche, on-duty or off. And since President Obama also appointed Magidson to his latest terror post, it will be a terribly difficult decision I'm sure. I wish her the best and hope she allows her conscience to guide her and not be worried about political backlash from within the organization that would surely erupt should she challenge the status quo.

Grits,the Tulia mentality is still alive and well in Texas in way too many communities where unchallenged prosecutors hell bent on convictions at all costs as opposed to the primary goal of "Justice" in all cases reign as the gatekeepers of the system; and the hero worshipping segment of the public are willing to excuse police misconduct "as long as its not my boy..." who's being wrongfully arrested, charged, abused, killed, etc. Perjury is rampant from all sides in proceedings and many times winked at by those attorneys (State and Defense) who are willing to suborn it, which does nothing more than hinder the achievement of the ultimate goal of seeing that the truly guilty are condemned as such and the truly innocent don't enter the system in the first place.

More Venita Guptas and individuals, as yourself, who are willing to seek out and call "Bullshit" when they see it are necessary to whittle away at the logjam of injustice in the Texas and national "Justice system". Keep up the good work...it does help.

Thanks for reviewing this!! I bet THAT good Texas news won't make it into the national mainstream. Though they might, since NY had such an influence? No doubt, long overdue in many ways. I fear the growing police state, though it's what they WANT me to do. Yet, cahoots are amok in high places, building THEIR fortunes at OUR expenses. The cops are enforcing laws in which they were never trained. They are placed in the middle as tools, protecting the lawyer/politician class from We The Poor People. Grits, YOU did another great recent article on how the law has been sold to PLEAS-for-Prosecutors, instead of jury trials.EVERYONE SHOULD DEMAND A JURY TRIAL EVERY TIME, then listen to the judges cry. Bring back, "Jail For Judges." THERE NEEDS TO BE OVERSIGHT, and the politicians are TOO SOLD OUT.

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